


Steady Waves

by dannyphantomyeetme



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Identity Reveal, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25366663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannyphantomyeetme/pseuds/dannyphantomyeetme
Summary: “Fuck you,” Danny says. “Both of you. You’re murderers.”
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Maddie Fenton, Jack Fenton/Maddie Fenton
Comments: 54
Kudos: 543





	Steady Waves

**Author's Note:**

> "Steady Waves" is a song by Cross Record that I listened to while writing this.
> 
> Jazz is at college, in case you're wondering.

Danny’s on his bed, reading a comic book, when Maddie comes in. He hides the cover from her immediately, and Maddie feels a vague sort of hurt that she represses: Danny’s sixteen. He’s allowed to have some secrets, even if she still instinctively expects him to share everything with her the way he used to when he was little.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” she asks. “We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

Danny makes a face.

“I’m not going,” he says.

“What? Of course you are,” Maddie says, somehow unable to comprehend her son’s act of defiance.

It seems like such a silly thing to get rebellious over. They’re just having lunch with Vlad. It’s a ten-minute drive at most. They’ll be home in two hours.

“I’m not,” Danny says. “I have plans. Sam and Tucker are coming over later.”

“They can come over after.” Maddie puts her hands on her hips. “Come on. Up.”

“No,” Danny tells her, raising his chin in the air. “Why do I have to come, anyway? Dad and Vlad will just end up talking about the ‘good old days’, Vlad will make a bunch of jokes at dad’s expense that you’ll get angry over, and nobody except for dad will have any fucking fun.”

“Language,” Maddie says half-heartedly. She’s tired. Danny’s been fighting her on seemingly everything, lately. “Please, Danny, can we not do this today? Just do this for me.”

She needs her son, is the truth. Vlad likes him. Not in any way Maddie understands, but still. Maddie has suspected for a while that Vlad sees something in her son that reminds him of himself, though she can’t pinpoint exactly what it is.

When Danny’s around, Vlad’s always a little kinder; a little less resentful.

“Jeez, mom,” Danny snaps, harsher than before. “You really think that’ll work? You don’t get to be a terrible mother for two years and then pull the- the _sympathy_ card when I don’t do what you want!” He’s not shouting, but the anger in his voice is clear.

For a second, she doesn’t recognize him.

This boy she raised, who would cry all through the night as a baby and crawl into bed with her as a toddler. She soothed his fevers, cleaned his accidents, picked up after him with the patience of a saint.

Maddie is supposed to see parts of herself in her son, she thinks. And on the surface, she does: There’s his chin, the build of his hips, the slight pout to his lips. He has Jack’s hair and eyes, but everything else is Maddie’s.

But his personality? Maddie doesn’t recognize that part of him anymore. It’s not her, and it’s certainly not Jack. She’s been noticing the change for a while: the mood swings, the open and not-so-open defiance, the coming and going at all hours.

He ditches school, comes home with bruises, withholds information, or tells straight-up lies that she pretends not to catch.

Yet somehow, it’s this moment that solidifies what she should have already known: that Danny has become a stranger living under her roof.

The little boy she knows would _never_ say anything this hurtful to her.

Her hands are shaking.

Danny is still glaring at her defiantly as Maddie experiences a series of emotions: surprise, anger, hurt, then some mixture of the three that dries out her mouth and knots up her stomach.

She has an urge to scream; to yell at Danny all the ways in which he has fallen short lately if only to make him feel even a fraction of the hurt that he’s inflicted on her. It’s an impulse that terrifies her. It reminds her of her own mother. Hadn’t she promised herself she’d do better than that?

“You’re grounded,” she says calmly.

Danny’s glare falls. He must hear something in her voice, because suddenly he seems apologetic. He opens his mouth, closes it, then speaks up in a voice so soft she almost doesn’t hear his words at all.

“Mom, I didn’t mean that.”

“You’re grounded,” she repeats. It’s the only thing she can think to say. She turns to leave, then turns back in a helpless display of indecisiveness. “You could do a lot worse than your dad and me, Danny. I hope you realize that.”

“Of course I do,” Danny says.

“Three days,” Maddie decides. “No TV, no computer, no phone. Hand it over.” She holds out her hand.

Danny stands. Hesitates. “I need my phone.”

“No, you don’t,” Maddie says.

“What if there’s an emergency?”

Maddie laughs humorlessly. It startles her when it, again, reminds her of her mother.

“What kind of an emergency?” she asks. “You’re sixteen, for Christ’s sake.”

Danny’s expression hardens. It happens so quickly that Maddie’s resolve almost crumbles. He looks at her like _she’s_ the unreasonable one. He grabs his phone from where it’s charging on his night-stand and all-but throws it at her.

Maddie catches it with ease. She’s a ghost hunter and trained in all kinds of forms of martial arts. She’s nothing if not quick.

“Get dressed,” she says. “I expect you to be downstairs in five minutes, or three days will turn into a week.”

“Fine!” Danny says. “Jesus. I can’t change with you here.”

She stands, for a moment unsure about… well, everything. She has the sudden feeling that something is _wrong_. She should ask Danny what’s going on. Why doesn’t he wanna go to Vlad’s? More importantly: why is he so sad and angry _all the time_?

 _Just talk to me, my baby,_ she thinks. _We can fix this._

“Get _out of my room_!” Danny shouts. So she does.

-

It’s perhaps because of their fight that Maddie is hyper-aware of her son.

She watches him in the rear-view mirror as they drive to Vlad’s house.

Danny is sulking: his arms are crossed, he’s pouting, and he’s staring out the window of the RV at the houses they pass seemingly without seeing them at all.

Jack is unaware of the tense atmosphere, chatting happily to both of them about _Vladdie this_ and _mayor that_ and God, Maddie loves him but he can be so dense, sometimes. Doesn’t he see what’s happening? Does he not notice the way Danny seems to flinch every time he says Vlad’s name?

(But then: she’s never noticed before either. Has Danny always done that?)

Maddie is beginning to have the terrible, awful realization that something is happening. Something has been happening right under her nose, maybe for a long time, and it must have something to do with Vlad.

She doesn’t want to think it, not of her husband’s best friend, but if Vlad has lain his hands on her son, she’ll-

She’s still watching Danny, so she doesn’t miss the shiver and the sudden alertness that follows. Danny is no longer staring out the window unseeing: he’s looking for something, eyes narrowed.

“Danny?” she asks, interrupting Jack mid-sentence. “What’s wrong?”

“Huh?” he looks at her through the rear-view; shrugs. “Nothing.” Immediately, he goes back to looking out the window.

“Ghost!” Jack shouts. He breaks like he’s about to hit a person.

Danny jumps in his seat. Maddie drags her eyes away and looks through the front window.

There’s a ghost floating in front of the car. She recognizes it as one of the ghosts that’s constantly after Phantom: a metal suit, flaming green hair, a big grin that shows too-white teeth. It’s looking at them, _through_ them.

At Danny.

“I gotta go to the bathroom!” Danny says, unbuckling himself.

“What?” Maddie asks, snapping her head around to look at him. “Put your seatbelt on, young man! That ghost might attack!”

“But I-”

“ _Now!_ ”

“Mom!”

They’ve been arguing too long. The ghost is flying at them, full-speed. It phases into their RV and _grabs Danny_ , and then it’s outside again and it’s flying away and taking Danny with it, and Maddie has to do something. They _have to do something_.

“Jack!” she shouts. “Danny!”

“On it, Mads!” Jack says. He begins pressing buttons, but Maddie is already outside, Fenton bazooka in her hands. It’s newly updated: it won’t harm humans, but it can completely disintegrate a ghost. All she needs to do is aim. The ghost isn’t flying that high. Danny might fall, might get some scrapes, but he’ll be fine if she just…

Shoots.

Danny falls, and Maddie drops the bazooka and runs at him.

“Danny?” she asks, kneeling next to him. “Danny?”

Danny’s fine, of course, though he’s acting like he’s not. He’s looking around frantically, clutching his stomach like he’s hurt, somehow.

“Where’s Skulker?!” he asks, looking up at her.

“What?” Maddie asks. She pulls Danny’s hands away from his stomach, checks the unblemished skin just to be sure. She thinks for just a moment that she sees something like reddened skin but no, there’s nothing.

Danny looks down at himself, also inspecting, then seems to relax.

“I’m fine,” he says, at Maddie’s inquisitive glance. “The ghost. Where is he? He just…” Danny shudders, suddenly, and Maddie decides not to correct him on his use of human pronouns. “He looked like he _melted_.”

“It's gone, baby,” Maddie says. “Don’t you worry. It's not coming back.”

Danny doesn’t look reassured. He looks scared.

“What do you mean?”

He looks down at his stomach again, as if it can give him an answer somehow.

“What kind of a weapon was that?!” He looks up at Maddie again, and he looks so…

Maddie can’t tell what that expression is.

“Mom? What did you _do_?!”

-

During dinner that night, Danny seems to snap. Maddie asks him to pass the salt, and he just about throws it in her face.

“Daniel James Fenton!” Jack says, in the stern dad-voice Maddie has come to find equal parts endearing and irritating, depending on the situation. “Apologise to your mother right now!”

“Fuck you,” Danny says. “Both of you. You’re murderers.”

His voice is icy calm. The way he storms out of the room, however, is not.

Maddie and Jack sit in silence for a long moment.

Maddie’s hands are shaking again. There’s a lump in her throat and a burning behind her eyes like she’s going to cry.

She doesn’t understand Danny. She just doesn’t.

She almost thought she had it, today. She thought maybe it was Vlad but it _isn’t_ , can't be, because today she watched Danny go to Vlad willingly, dragging him off and seeming to confide in him, she thinks, though she couldn’t hear his actual words.

And then, afterward, even _Vlad_ had looked at her like she’d done something terrible.

Jack is the first to break the silence. He sighs deeply and looks at her.

“You okay, Mads?” he asks.

“I-” Maddie begins. Her voice sounds choked. “He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Jack says soothingly. “He’s a teenager.”

“You don’t know how-” Maddie shakes her head and presses gloved hands against her eyes. “He looks at me like I’m the worst person in the world and I-”

She doesn’t know how to say it. She can’t explain to her husband that their son, their baby boy, makes her feel like she’s constantly stepping on his toes. Worse: like she's hurting him on purpose.

He doesn’t look that way at Jack. Danny and Jack have their problems, but not like this. Never like this.

“Am I a bad mother?” she asks before she’s aware she’s thinking it.

“Maddie, hey,” Jack gets up, kneels next to her chair. “No.” He puts his hands on her knees, and she starts to cry. “You’re a _good_ mom. Danny is… he’s…" Jack waves around vaguely. "...Hurting.”

Maddie can’t stop crying.

“What do we do?” she asks, over and over. “What do we _do_?”

Jack, of course, doesn’t have an answer.

-

Maddie spends a long time staring out the window.

Phantom’s right there, in front of their house.

Her head hurts from crying. It’s one AM, and she should go to bed, but it’s _right there_ , almost like it’s trying to lure her outside.

It’s not alone. It’s talking to another ghost. She knows it’s name: Ember McLain. It pretended to be a pop-star once, lured her daughter and a lot of other teenagers out to it's concert and tried to brainwash them all.

Phantom stopped it then, but that was of course a ruse.

They’re talking like old friends, now. Ember seems upset.

Maddie opens the window.

The ghosts, surprisingly, don’t notice her at all. Ember is wailing in a mock of human agony. It makes the hairs on Maddie’s arms stand up but of course, she knows, this is all some kind of show. Ghosts don’t have feelings, least of all pain.

She aims.

-

“Mom?”

Maddie doesn’t fully awaken from her slumber. She knows instinctively that Danny is there, but in her mind he’s not a sulky teenager but instead a five-year-old boy, teddy bear clutched in one hand, standing in the doorway of her bedroom because he’s had a nightmare and needs Jack to check for monsters under his bed.

“Mom?” Danny says again, and her eyes open.

The room is dark. Danny’s standing in the doorway, no more than a black silhouette.

Maddie looks at her alarm-clock, bleary-eyed. Two forty-three am. Jack’s not in bed with her. He must have fallen asleep in front of the TV again.

“Are you awake?” Danny asks.

Maddie sits up.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

Danny seems to hesitate. She can’t see his expression in the darkness, but she knows him well enough to be able to tell that something’s wrong just from his body language.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“No,” Danny says. He steps into the room; stumbles. “Can I get in bed with you?”

The question surprises her. Danny hasn’t slept in her bed, fitfully between her and Jack, since he was six. Still, she nods.

“Of course.”

Danny gets under the covers on Jack’s side. Now that he’s closer, she can make out the curve of his nose and the shine of his eyes in what little light there is. He wiggles until he’s closer to her, and Maddie realizes he’s shivering, maybe even shaking. It hits her like a punch in the gut.

Her anger towards him has been long forgotten, despite the scene he pulled during dinner, and suddenly the feeling of _wrong_ that she felt this morning is back, tenfold, closing up her throat with fear.

“Danny. What is it?” Even to her own ears she sounds more than a little alarmed.

“Do you hate me?” Danny asks. He sounds drowsy, even though the shaking hasn’t subsided--has only gotten worse.

“What? Danny, no-” Maddie reaches out, intending to hug this boy that is _not_ a stranger, not even nearly. He’s her _son_. 

Her fingers touch something hot and wet and she pulls away, reaches for the lamp on her nightstand, and clicks it on.

It only occurs to her then, as she sees the mixture of red and green on her fingers, to shout for her husband.

“I couldn’t stitch it up,” Danny whispers and of course he couldn’t. _Of course_ he couldn’t! She pulls the bedsheets away and she can see that he tried, but his side is a ruin of what looks like melted skin and muscle and _is that bone_?

“Jack!” she keeps shouting, her hands going from where they’ve been assessing Danny’s wound to her baby boy's face, cupping his cheeks despite the blood. “Stay awake, Danny. Just stay with me... _Jack_!”

Danny has dozed off--no, _passed out_ , and Jack is thundering up the stairs at Maddie’s frantic shouting, and this was _not supposed to happen!_

_How did this happen?!_

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what the fuck this is.


End file.
